There is no hope for humanity. And here’s my examples. Exhibit A: I look over to my left at a stop light and see two people, a mom and a dad, both smoking cigarettes with one window cracked about half an inch to let in “fresh” air–air from the crammed intersection that is one part diesel fumes and one part McDonalds fumes. The interior of their car was so smokey, that I could barely see through the window on the other side of the vehicle. In the back seat was their little girl, maybe six or seven years old. I shook my head in disgust. A moment passed as the situation sunk in, and then the light turned green. We both went, and pretty soon they were a couple hundred meters down the road. Now I was wishing I had said something to them. I watched as they turned into a gas station. I passed them and continued on my way home, only another 2 miles or so. But my concise took over and I looped back around and pulled in beside them at the gas station. Both the mom and dad were still sitting in the car, smoking. I stopped right next to the passenger side window and told them they shouldn’t be smoking with a little kid in the car. It told them they were disgusting and should be ashamed. The dad got out and went into the gas station convenient store, probably to buy more cigarettes, without acknowledging I had said anything. I stood there not saying anything. The mom hung her head down and said “OK,” trying to cover her guilt in her voice with sarcasm. I said I couldn’t believe what she was doing to her kid, and rode away. I left feeling pretty good, and that maybe I even made a difference. Who knows, if enough people guilt trip them about killing their child with second hand smoke, maybe they’ll stop doing it. I’ve come to dislike the thought of most people as I spend most of the time pissed off at them, in their cars, honking, not giving me room, or revving their engines when the pass. I don’t dislike people as individuals because I usually get along with most people, but as a whole I don’t like what we are. Humanity is disgusting. There’s no arguing with that. And the good doesn’t overwhelm the bad. And people do not change. And if that’s true, the only hope of humanity not continuing to be a disease of the planet lies with the idea that children won’t be as messed up as their parents. I was thinking about this as I pulled into our col-de-sac when a tiny little boy, about the same age as the little girl with dark spots on her lungs, pointed a toy rifle at me and pretended to fire. Good parenting. Give him a life-like gun so at a young age he can begin training for a promising career as an inmate, or possibly a marine fighting for “freedom” in some third world country. So there went my idea of children being untainted. I believe people are born evil and become even worse as they mature, with the guidance of their evil parents and peers. I’m on my sixth or seventh Kurt Vonnegut book of the last month or two.
Exhibit B: I bought what I thought was swiss chard at Safeway today (ps I hate Safeway for a lot of reasons but didn’t want to ride 8 miles to and from the better store I usually go to). It turned out to be bok choy. The Safeway employee told me it was bok choy. I thought he was mistaken but didn’t say anything, fearing that if he found out it was swiss chard, the price would be much higher. Anyways, I bought a bunch of it, like six pounds or more since it was so cheap, and took it home an cooked up a big batch of swiss chard soup, which is really tasty and high in vitamins. But it turned out to be bok choy after all. The two vegetables look very similar. Anyways, the soup tastes terrible. Why didn’t the Safeway people tell me bok choy was so nasty??!! They should have warned me. Another reason why humanity is doomed: bok choy is sold at most stores and it is extremely bad tasting, while swiss chard is not sold at most stores and it tastes great. Plus you know we’re doomed if no one even warns you about how bad the stupid vegetable is.
Exhibit C: I only had two opportunities to watch the Olympics and both times the majority of the programming was figure skating. So it is.
KENNETT PETERSON 